Abdominoplasty is a surgical procedure that corrects more or less significant impairment in the abdominal area which can be associated with various degrees of skin problems (cutaneous excess, scars, stretch marks, loss of tone), alterations in the muscular wall (loss of muscular tone, umbilical and white line hernia, anterior muscle diastasis) excess abdominal and hip fat.
The aims of this operation are to tighten the skin, treat excess fat by liposuction and recover an abdominal muscular wall of good quality. Each time there is a lot of excess fat, it must be treated before the operation.
Drawing of the abdominoplasty resection lines will depend on the amount of cutaneous excess to be resected. In minor forms, subumbilical minilifting associated or not with liposuction will be performed. The procedure consists in eliminating a certain amount of excess skin without touching the navel. The inferior incision is made at the edge of the pubic hair line in order to leave a scar of variable length which will be concealed by the patient’s underwear. In cases of major impairment, a greater cutaneous resection will be performed by ablation of a large amount of excess skin that can go above the navel which will be preserved on its muscular insertion. Laterally, the resection lines can exceed the bone structures of the iliac crests. The healthy subumbilical skin is redraped downward in order to recreate an abdominal wall with skin of good quality. The ombilicus is placed in its original position by an incision in the tightened abdominal skin. The procedure can be completed by muscular plasty and liposuction.
This operation is generally performed under general anesthesia and requires three to five days of hospitalization depending on the initial degree of impairment. Minor forms can be treated on an outpatient basis. Postoperatively, the patient must wear surgical dressing for two weeks and a compression girdle 24/7 for at least one month. Variable postoperative pain will be increased by muscular movements. Patients should plan on taking medical leave from one week to one month. For muscular movements, sports should be stopped for six weeks. In order to prevent thromboembolic accidents, an anticoagulant treatment should be prescribed for 10 days.
The results will require four months to be judged in terms of morphology, the scars in 12 to 18 months and a change in abdominal wall sensitivity can be observed for up to one year.
Abdominoplasty provides a solution for more or less severe impairment of the abdominal wall with marked improvement in terms of the patient’s silhouette and in greater comfort in the treatment of major impairment.
